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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1655 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 6, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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How did Astrology become a Thing again? Since 2020, I've encountered it more and more IRL among the general population, even in people with undergrad degrees. I checked Tinder the other week before re-un-installing, and at least 1/3rd of the profiles had birth sign front-and-center. I honestly thought this was a slain beast.

Someone talking about capricorns really riles up my inner fedora.

Hasn't hit Japan yet as far as I know, but here there are already enough charms, amulets, bracelets, talismans, and assorted other apotropaic tchotchkes spread about the shops, stalls, shrines, and genkans that people probably don't have much mental space to add in the heavens. Oh and blood type, can't forget that. Blood type interest seems much more female coded but the general vibe toward what I'd (as someone raised Christian) see as animistic superstition is general. Of course I recently heard of a Japanese woman mocking Catholicism as a bizarrely morbid cult that has the gall to hang its god's body out in the middle of the place of worship, so there's that.

She has a point, Christianity is a spooky religion; you drink blood and the priests wear black and especially holy people bleed from their palms

CS Lewis made a point of discussing this in one of his works.

In my homebrew RPG setting I have a faith called The Weeping God. The joke is that it's a stereotypical underground sect of spooky cultists with wavy daggers and black robes and lots of runny mascara who worship an alien, eldritch entity. Except the entity is Neutral Good, but it's so alien that it extols its faithful to be Stupid Good. They also drink it's black blood. Or tears. Or the tears are blood, no one can quite follow the theology.

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